The Year of Shattering Silos

This is the year to shatter the silos. Consider any best practice, method or standard that you have or are thinking of implementing. In any DevOps, ITSM, ISO or Lean initiative the biggest challenge that any CIO or organization as a whole will have to address is how to meet the rate of demand and the dynamic business requirements. Dynamic business requirements are a norm not an exception and the service provider will need to ensure fluidity throughout the value stream. Shattering Silo’s will be a prerequisite to achieving end-to-end workflow and agility.

Functional Silos

When talking about silos most practitioners immediately think of integrating departments or functional teams. One of the more obvious silos to address here is the division between development and operational teams (DevOps). While there is a lot of buzz in the industry on how to bridge that great divide, the real chasm that hinders efficiency and optimization is that between the business and IT. Business performance is directly related to IT performance and the business side of the house must engage IT in all strategic initiatives. Not only to ensure functional and nonfunctional requirements but I am speaking here of full on consistent support and engagement with IT to ensure an ever evolving service belt.

Technology Silos

Outdated, disparate, and nonintegrated tools and technology are killing the opportunity to achieve real competitive advantage, time to market and business outcomes. A holistic approach to tool selection to support DevOps, ITSM and Lean will have to be looked at from and integrated tool chain perspective. Enough already with replicated tools effort and resources.

Process Silos

Ok… now we are really getting to the crux of things. When attempting to bust out of and to shatter silos. Those organizations that have attempted it will be the first to tell us that we should never have a “Configuration Management Process” project or “” project. Instead you might have a project to “Record and Track Changes” in order to restore service quickly and reduce business and customer impact. This initiative would like to look at how to integrate some small increment of integration between Incident, Problem, Change and Configuration Management. This is very different than having an over worked bureaucratic configuration or change control process that hinders more than it helps. Every process design or improvement initiative that is driven by customer and business needs and requirements would work best to deliver value. When projects are not driven by the voice of the business or the voice of the customer we tend to end up with process for process sake. Taking an iterative agile approach to process design and looking at what might be required for a holistic integrated process approach across the software development and service lifecycle is likely to avoid a lot of bureaucracy, bottlenecks and impediments in the velocity and cadence required to meet dynamic business requirements. Agile Service Management will truly help to shatter the “Process Silos”.

Information Silos

Functional Silos, Technology Silos and Process Silos create data and information silos. Simply put, if your data and information are siloed, you will always be siloed and perhaps never have the capability to achieve true optimized business performance.

To learn more or to become a Certified Agile Process Owner or Certified Agile Service Manager: http://itsmacademy.com/Agile

Four Service Characteristics

Recently I came across several articles by researchers and experts that laid out definitions and characteristics of services. ITIL provides us with a definition that can help drive the creation of value-laden services: A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. An area that ITIL is not so clear is in terms of service characteristics. Several researchers and experts put forth that services have four basic characteristics (IHIP): Intangibility—Services are the results of actions not things. They have no physical presence and represent a logical set of elements. One way to think of service is “work done for others.” Heterogeneity—Also known as “variability”; services are unique items because of the mechanisms used to deliver services, which is people. Because the people element adds variability, the service is variable. This holds true, especially for the value proposition—not eve...

What Is A Service Offering?

The ITIL 4 Best Practice Guidance defines a “Service Offering” as a description of one or more services designed to address the needs of a target customer or group. As a service provider, we can’t stop there! We must know what the contracts of our service offering are and be able to put them into context as required by the customer. Let’s explore the three elements that comprise a Service Offering. A “Service Offering” may include: Goods, Access to Resources, and Service Actions 1. Goods – When we think of “Goods” within a service offering these are the items where ownership is transferred to the consumer and the consumer takes responsibility for the future use of these goods. Example of goods that are being provided in the offering – If this is a hotel service then toiletries or chocolates are yours to take with you. You the consumer own these and they are yours to take with you. ...

What is the difference between Process Owner, Process Manager and Process Practitioner?

This article was originally published in 2015. With the Introduction of ITIL 4, some of this best practice has changed. See ITIL 4 and the Evolving Role of Roles . Updated Definitions in ITIL 4: Process Owner: In ITIL 4, the concept of 'processes' has expanded into broader 'practices.' Consequently, the Process Owner is now often referred to as the 'Practice Owner.' This individual is accountable for the overall design, performance, integration, and improvement of a specific practice within the organization. They ensure that the practice achieves its intended outcomes and aligns with the organization's objectives. Process Manager: Now commonly known as the 'Practice Manager' in ITIL 4, this role is responsible for the day-to-day management of the practice. The Practice Manager ensures that activities are carried out as intended, manages resources assigned to the practice, and oversees the practitioners performing the work. Process Practit...

Search